Wave Accounting vs Quickbooks Online Comparison

I love the ease and simplicity of Wave Accounting. It's direct and to the point with great functionality. You have a lot of control over-invoicing, recurring billing, creating customers, applying expenses to projects, etc.

The reporting is ok, a lot of it's failings are in how I'm using it vs the feature not being available.

This is perfect for a small organization and solopreneurs. I eventually changed to QUickBooks when my company got large enough, but for my side gigs, this is perfect and free!

No mobile app is a huge downfall. This is why I use QuickBooks Online instead for my main corporation.

FREE!!! You have got to love that aspect... Great way to save personally or for your small business.

WAve is, in my opinion, a little less user-friendly than Quickbooks online? I do prefer my Quickbooks online. I was also able to give my accountant direct access (through a simple invitation) to my QB, whereas I never found such a feature in WAve. Perhaps I missed it, but again, I prefer the extreme user-friendliness of QB online.

We use Wave Apps for our small side business - it's been a fantastic tool for accounting. We can send invoices and accept credit card payments... and more recently they've added the feature to automatically schedule recurring invoices and payments. It has done everything we've needed and is our go-to choice for accounting software.

The only downside is that there are less integration capabilities with Wave Apps as you might find with a more commonly used software like Quickbooks.

Wave was free, and we were able to track our expenses, get reporting, and track how our business was doing for at least our first year.

Unable to do some of the reporting features that we would want. We switched to Quickbooks Online because we believed it was a more powerful tool.

I switched from Quickbooks when they started charging a monthly fee. Being able to invoice my customers online is the best part.

I wish you could upload my customer base from Quickbooks.

It is so easy to use and virtually free expect, they charge a fee to receive payments. Otherwise, I can invoice, track sales and purchases, run P&L reports, etc all for free.

I hope the free features and functionality doesn't change now that Wave Apps has been sold to H&R Block.

The free version still allows businesses to classify all the accounting transactions for bookkeeping purposes. Also, you can send invoices to clients as well as receiving payments via credit card or bank transfers.

Auto classifying is a bit off so I have to manually categorize and classify them to make sure they're correct. Very few cons with Waveapp.

I like the easy to use features with Wave. I have used more of the payroll side of things and I really like it compared to other payroll companies that I have used.

I wish they offered more reports. They only offer a select amount of reports and I feel that if they offered more reports that more people would choose their software over say Quickbooks Online.

I love the ease of use. After using Quickbooks online and struggling with how to set up things like payroll, Wave was absolutely what I needed. Very easy interface to navigate.

The only drawback so far is the number of states they are not connected with so as to handle withholding and other tax payments. Navigating my state's website to ensure I'm up to date on these tax payments is quite the additional headache. I so hope Wave eventually is connected with all 50 states for this.

I love that Wave Accounting offers their software for free with online access. I have an accounting degree and used Quickbooks for years. When the price of the software began to increase even just for simple entrepreneurial access I began looking for less expensive options. Wave offers everything that Quickbooks does but for free!

I've been using Wave Accounting for a little over 2 years now and haven't had any complaints yet based on my use and the price.

Receipt scanner. Invoices look nice. Email is sent from Wave account (Not quite sure that is a plus or a negative). Connects to your Bank Account and lets your categorize the transaction. Dashboard has great-looking layout with graphs. Paid invoices are marked as a receipt instead of an invoice which makes more sense to me. Will alert you of non-payment on a regular basis. Sales Tax Report is basic, but layout is very appealing. Has Premium Payroll option starting at $19/month with direct deposit included. On a more positive note, I recently received an email from the CEO saying to look out for improvements to Wave in the near future. Apparently, there will be new tools and features and it will be faster. I look forward to that.

The App on iPhone and iPad is slow. I don't remember using support, so I can really speak to how quick or effective they are. It's FREE so I'm guessing it's not superior. It's not Quickbooks, but it works. However, it you have Quickbooks (Stand Alone version) on your computer and you bank with an up-to-date institution that allows you can integrate for a fee and not have to pay an additional ongoing subscription to Quickbooks online.

It's very easy to set up. Very intuitive. I like the Dashboard. The customer service chat is right there. We have been with QuickBooks desktop and online. They are too much for my needs.

It's confusing with the "Personal" and business tabs sharing the same bank connections to be used. Luckily I'm only importing January 2019. So it was easy to recover.

This software has the functionality of the major front-runners in accounting software for no cost at all. The functionality is great and the UI stands up against the likes of Quickbooks Online and Xero.

The customer service was a little slower than I would expect (+3 days for a response) but then again, I'm not even paying for the service by this stage. I have experienced some low-level display issues on the dashboard screen while using my Macbook Pro (13") laptop.

This software is a game-changer for free or low cost needs. It can 100% cover the needs of a non profit organization, or in my case our home owner's association needs. It is very easy to create accounts, or modify the already existing ones, and it is very easy to send invoices out. Also, it offers electronic payments which is very convenient for those who wish to pay electronically.

The software does not allow for check printing through it. All expenses need to be recorded and checks to be entered manually. This causes a feeling of "double entering" or doing twice a process that could have been simplified. The fact that the software will not be able to make payments is a little outdated.

Okay, so if you're just starting out working freelance, this is probably where you want to start. QuickBooks Online is where you'll wind up eventually, but that program stinks REAL hard. Wave is undeniably easier and quicker to use.

It confuses my accounts sometimes. I'm sure I could fix it, but I can't figure out how. But I also don't really use those features. If I did, I'd probably migrate to a more advanced application.

Low cost nice interfaces. Stripe integration

No check printing. No automatic migration from Quickbooks.

Hi, I'm sorry that Wave wasn't the right fit for you. We take our customer feedback seriously, and leverage this feedback when determining what features we'll build next. Based on customer requests for different features, as well as some other factors, check printing isn't currently something that's been prioritized, and as such it's not currently available with Wave. -Sara from Wave

Wave promises to be a great alternative to quickbooks and quickbooks line with all of the features a small business needs and small business-friendly pricing.

What has made us hesitant to go all-in with Wave is their lack of migration support. The process of changing from QB is time consuming and if you're a small business you sometimes do not have the time.

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You can’t beat the cost and functionality of this free software. When the pandemic started I used the business closure time to switch from Quickbooks to Wave and I was impressed. It does virtually everything Quickbooks does, but it’s free! Account reconciliation is much quicker with Wave than Quickbooks.

The one thing I wish they would change is that after importing your bank statement at the end of the month, you cannot bulk categorize transfers to other account. In my case, I must tediously click on each daily ATM transaction and designate this to transfer to an account. After 30 times in a row it is tedious and boring.

It's FREE, very similar to QuickBooks without the huge financial commitment

As of now, the capacity I use it I have nothing negative to say

Ease of use and pricing is excellent. Add ons available as needed.

Can not import complete history from QuickBooks so switching is not easy.

This is an easy to use and easy to learn software for free.

Not as fully featured as quickbooks and charges a little extra to process payment.

It is nice that they have a Google App shortcut if you are a Google based company. Quick initial setup

No mobile app. Coming from Quickbooks, I had a hard time getting started with Wave. It wasn't setup the way I expected an accounting software to be setup. Eventually I gave up and went back to Quickbooks

For the price, QBO is an absolute must have for small business owners! Pretty much all accounting features are available and it's very user-friendly. For people who have contractors, you do have to pay additional to keep track of their expenses for taxes, but it records and automates everything for you so it was very easy to understand and use during tax season. They provide accountant services as well for anyone who wants to hire an accountant.

I switched from Wave accounting because it had so many syncing issues so QBO has been amazing and has been a lifesaver!

I have used quickbooks products for literally decades now. I was an early user of quickbooks online. Obviously early on the online component was innovative and important. Now its the norm. The good thing about Qbo is that most features you need are there.

For the price of the software, there is little support and I have had numerous problems getting help with issues. It seems that almost once per year i would run into a big problem and it would take numerous ongoing calls to resolve. For a company of Intuit's size that is not acceptable. I would be told I would be notified of status and no one gets back to me, forcing me to call in again.

As a professional bookkeeper, I appreciate - the robust reconciliation process - a large array of reports, many customizable in useful ways - easy transaction editing - robust bank feed features, including the ability to set up categorization rules

I wish this software stuck to a consistent use of the terms "debit," "credit," "increase," and "decrease" in the account ledgers. And if they must use the terms "increase" and "decrease" (which are totally relative, since one side's increase is always another's decrease, and vice versa) they could at least follow those with "Debit" and "Credit" in parentheses for those of us who need to work with an accounting perspective. Recent coding changes to payroll set-up have also presented me with significant challenges in setting up a multi-state payroll that included payroll history.

Quickbooks makes it easy to manage your own books (especially if you don't deal with A LOT of transactions). It's easy to import all of your transactions from your bank account, categorize them, and send your books to a CPA at the end of the year.

Quickbooks is a great service but there are free options that do the same thing (i.e. Wave).

Being cloud base, its easy accessible anywhere with internet even on mobile and low weight.

Misses some basic accounting concept such as no option to add accounting & invoice date different.